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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Set in the colony of New South Wales in the 1830s, this is a woman-centred melodrama set against colonial class divisions and involving two overlapping triangles (husband/wife/outsider and husband/wife/sinister housekeeper). The film is light on suspense but complex in emotional interplay, involving the long take (which precludes strict point of view) in shifting emotional identification intertwined with the guilt of the main characters. Robin Wood has also identified complex intertextual relationships: an early Hitchcock, The Manxman (a class-based triangle); Rebecca (the sinister housekeeper); Vertigo (the role of 'confession' and the reconstruction of the woman's image by the hero); and the stylised psychoanalytical romances Spellbound and Marnie. Along with Notorious and Gaslight, it is central to Ingrid Bergman's canon, in the tension in her persona between the active 'natural' woman and the vulnerable mentally and/or physically debilitated victim. (Source: Libraries Australia)
Notes
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Simpson's story was later adapted for television by Tony Morphett (for the South Australian Film Corporation) and aired in 1983 on the Nine Network. The director was Rod Hardy.
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Note on authorship:
The credits for the film read 'By John Colton and Margaret Linden / From a novel by Helen Simpson / Adaptation by Hume Cronin / Screenplay by James Bridie'.
Margaret Linden and John Colton were reported as the authors as early as 1946 (see, for example, a brief, untitled report in the Goulburn Evening Post, 10 September 1946, p.4).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Not Suitable for Children : Alfred Hitchcock Films Helen Simpson's Australia
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 126-132) Inside Story , October 2016;''Helen Simpson’s Under Capricorn made a decades-long journey from novel to film to TV to DVD. Alfred Hitchcock’s version was a revealing stop-off along the way'
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Under Capricorn
1950
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 19 May vol. 1 no. 5 1950; (p. 9, 11)
— Review of Under Capricorn 1949 single work film/TV -
Round the World
1947
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168)
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Under Capricorn
1950
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Week-End Review , 19 May vol. 1 no. 5 1950; (p. 9, 11)
— Review of Under Capricorn 1949 single work film/TV -
Round the World
1947
single work
column
— Appears in: The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal , September vol. 2 no. 3 1947; (p. 168) -
Not Suitable for Children : Alfred Hitchcock Films Helen Simpson's Australia
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 126-132) Inside Story , October 2016;''Helen Simpson’s Under Capricorn made a decades-long journey from novel to film to TV to DVD. Alfred Hitchcock’s version was a revealing stop-off along the way'
- New South Wales,
- Bush,
- 1800-1899